


Sirius Comforts Remus After a Bad Moon

by simplysirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Disability, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Relationship(s), Remus x Sirius, sirius x remus, wolfstar, wolfstar angst, wolfstar fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29318892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplysirius/pseuds/simplysirius
Summary: When Remus gets injured after a bad moon, Sirius goes to the ends of the earth to make sure he knows how much he loves him. Featuring a mute Remus learning ASL with Sirius.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 96





	Sirius Comforts Remus After a Bad Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for daily fics and fan art! I also take requests :)

At first, Sirius didn’t think it was that bad.

There was an angry red welt after he had pressed a damp cloth to Remus’ skin, but there had been other wounds, broken bones and gaping cuts, that were worse.

Madame Pomfrey didn’t think it looked bad either, prescribing Remus some pain potions and a few days of rest. Sirius gladly tended to Remus, making his tea just the way he liked, taking extra notes in class to make sure he wouldn’t miss anything, bringing extra desserts from dinner to let the chocolate scones work their magic.

But three days later, when Remus’ bones healed and his body no longer ached, something was still wrong.

“Good morning, Moony,” Sirius mumbled, his voice still heavy with sleep as he blinked awake, the pale sunshine pouring into his ocean eyes.

Remus smiled, stretching his arms in the air and wincing as his muscles popped.

“Good morning,” he said, but when his lips parted, the words died on his tongue, nothing but a faint whisper disintegrating into the air. He tried again, the words still trapped in his throat, and on the third attempt, nothing happened.

Remus sat up in bed, diving for the glass of water on his nightstand. Beads of liquid spilled down his chin in his haste, gulping it down as fast as he could and nearly choking as Sirius rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

“Remus? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Remus said, but the words were silent, no matter how loud he tried to scream, no matter how many times he tried. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the mirror hanging on the wall, watching his mouth move without making a sound. Ever so slowly, his fingers ghosted along the newest scar in his repertoire, a nasty, jagged line careening from one side of his collarbone to the other, traveling just behind his ear.

Sirius appeared in the mirror behind him, eyes wide as he saw Remus hand tracing the mark. “Madame Pomfrey can fix this. She can fix it, and you’ll be good as new.”

Remus nodded, only too aware of the tightness in Sirius’ voice, the nerves electrifying his fingers as he threw on the nearest t-shirt lying on the ground.

Madame Pomfrey was usually very good at keeping an impassive face, never letting the students see how truly terrible some of their wounds were, or how painful a potion would be to heal them of their magical ailments. When the boys walked in on their own two feet, without any missing limbs or unsightly slugs slipping from their mouths, she smiled and offered them a lollypop. When Remus wrapped a hand around his neck, tears burning his eyes, her face dropped, skin paling a dull alabaster.

“He lost his voice,” Sirius explained quickly, pushing Remus onto a bed. “Whenever he tries to talk, nothing comes out.”

Fetching her instruments, Madame Pomfrey quickly set to work, poking and prodding at Remus’ throat, pressing his tongue down with a wooden stick, and mixing a vile concoction of ingredients into a potion that sloshed in the cup like heavy tar.

Sirius held Remus’ hand tightly as he choked down the thick liquid, brushing his hair away from his face so he wouldn’t stain his curls. “You can fix him, right? If he drinks that, he can talk again?”

Madame Pomfrey swallowed, her long, delicate fingers paging through a large tome with faded writing and yellowed parchment. “Sirius, why don’t you go to class and leave Remus with me?”

“Absolutely not,” Sirius declined, decidedly planting his feet. “Transfiguration can wait. McGonagall will understand.”

“I’ll get him sorted and he’ll be singing like a bird in no time,” she promised, taking back the cup as Remus tried to keep the potion in his stomach, lips painted black. “We need to run a few more tests…it would be easier if you weren’t here.”

“But–” Sirius started to argue, before a hand gently cupped his cheek. Remus tried on a thin smile, nodding quietly. “Are you sure?”

Remus nodded again, glancing around the room for a spare piece of paper and a quill, pantomiming the writing motion with his hands. Madame Pomfrey understood, fetching the materials from her desk.

In his tiny, neat writing, Remus scribbled, _bring me back a chocolate chip cookie from lunch?_

Sirius grinned, pressing a hard kiss to his forehead. “Of course.”

As soon as the doors closed behind him, Remus turned back to his parchment and quill. Madame Pomfrey watched carefully, taking the paper into her hands and frowning.

_You’re a good liar. Please tell me the truth._

When Sirius returned hours later, cookie in hand, he threw the door open so quickly it swung back into the wall, the sound echoing in the room.

“How’d it go?” He asked, marching towards the bed. “Are you–” Sirius stopped short, frozen.

Remus’ eyes were red and swollen, his skin sticky from tears, sweater sleeves wrinkled and wet. His shoulders caved in and his lips were taken sharply between his teeth, hands wringing in his lap.

“Sirius, why don’t you take a seat,” Madame Pomfrey said quietly, motioning to the edge of the bed.

His feet suddenly heavy blocks of concrete, Sirius shuffled to towards Remus, nudging beside him.

“During the full moon, Remus injured his throat,” she explained, giving the words enough time to settle around Sirius before she continued. “One of the claw marks grazed his vocal chords, and the damage was…extensive. Magic can’t fix that. They might heal, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years, but…they might not.”

Sirius just blinked, as if Madame Pomfrey was speaking German. His eyes glazed over and the air in his lungs slowly ran out.

“Remus can’t talk.”

He’d never hear Remus’ lyrical laugh again. Never hear him say I love you. Never hear him puff out his chest and scold the first years like the good prefect he was. Remus would never scream at Quidditch games or sing along to their favorite songs or become a teacher at Hogwarts, like he’d dreamed about for years.

“There has to be something else you can try,” Sirius said suddenly, glancing around the room. “A different potion, or a spell, or–”

A hand covering his own silenced him. Remus shook his head, pressing his lips together. This was his reality now. He had to accept it, and Sirius did, too.

“This…this is fine, okay? It’s totally fine, because we can still write to each other, and see each other and…and there’s nonverbal magic, so you can still do spells. I’m the best at nonverbals, I can teach you how to do it and you’ll be unstoppable,” Sirius rambled, holding Remus’ face between his hands. “Nothing has to change, alright, we’ll…we’ll figure out how to make this work.”

The kind words didn’t stop the tears from streaming down Remus’ cheeks, nor the sobs wracking his shoulders, but Sirius held him tightly, pressing their chests together. If Remus couldn’t use his words, Sirius would just have to learn how to read his heart.

“I still love you,” Sirius promised. “Nothing could ever happen to make me stop loving you. I don’t care what we have to do; we’ll make it through this. I promise.”

He held out his pinky finger and hooked it around Remus’, a resolute promise. The future lay ahead, a new world clouded in uncertainty and constant reminders of what Remus had lost.

The first few months were difficult. Remus communicated exclusively through words on parchment or overly expressive hand gestures. Nonverbal spells were arduous, and Remus very nearly broke his wand in half when he couldn’t even transfigure an apple into a feather. Twice he had been caught without paper, and trying to explain what he wanted at the bakery in Hogsmeade was so frustrating that after five minutes, he gave up and ran all the way back to Hogwarts. Sirius found him in the astronomy tower, curled up on the balcony, letting the wind caress his face and dry his tears.

For Christmas, Sirius bought Remus a library of tiny notebooks and a baby quill, so he’d always have his words right in the back pocket of his jeans. Over the holiday break, the boys ventured into London to ice skate and walk underneath the lanes draped in sparkling lights, stopping for hot chocolate and gourmet doughnuts on the way back to the train station.

Across the platform, while waiting for the train, Sirius spotted a mother and her young daughter smiling, their hands forming shapes and drawing patterns in the air. Reading her fingers, the girl laughed, responding with her own mysterious symbols and motions.

And that’s when Sirius had it.

It took them all summer. Hours and hours each day, locked up inside Remus’ bedroom watching the VHS tapes they rented from the store and reading every book the small library in Remus’ village had to offer. At first, their signs were clumsy, fingers getting in the way and never able to keep up with the instruction videos. They practiced on each other, slowly learning the shapes of their favorite words.

_Tea_ , of course, was an important one, a sign that Remus mastered easily. His fingers were already accustomed to stirring the steaming liquid, so his hands found the motion of holding a pretend cup and spoon familiar. Sirius’ first word was _music_ , and he was all too excited pretending he was conducting an orchestra, wildly flinging his arms back and forth as Remus smiled. When the moon was already falling in the sky and the boys were still awake, they would compete to see who could spell their names faster. _R-E-M-U-S_ was much easier to spell than _S-I-R-I-U-S_ , but their contests frequently ended in a disputed tie, neither conceding defeat.

On their last day of summer break, heads foggy with another day buried in books, Sirius and Remus lay together in bed, their legs intertwined, ankles hooked together, fingers gently carding through hair. Sirius had taped his wand to the headboard, the tip of the wood illuminated just brightly enough to bathe them in a pale blue light that allowed them to sign to each other.

_I’m scared to go back_ , Remus signed, the corners of his mouth tugging down.

Sirius nodded. _I know. I’ll be there._

_Thank you for all of this._

_You can buy me some tea when we get back._

Remus’ eyebrows furrowed. _What?_

_Tea._

_What are you doing?_

_Tea!_ Sirius repeated the sign over and over, balling his hand into a makeshift cup and dunking the pretend teabag inside.

Remus’ hand spread over his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he silently laughed. _That’s not tea. That’s vote._

_You’re wrong._

_Tea._ Remus signed the word correctly, stirring the imaginary cup instead of dipping the bag. _I’m way better than you._

“I don’t think so,” Sirius argued, wrestling on top of Remus and lacing their hands together, peppering a thousand kisses over his face and down his neck, his lips tracing the scar slashing across Remus’ throat.

The color had faded over the last few months, now just a bolt of white lightning cutting through his skin. Remus had tried to hide it with anything – scarves, collars, robes – but it could never disappear completely, and there had been some days where he didn’t even want to go to the grocery store for fear of people staring.

Sirius made sure to kiss it gently, soft lips pressing against the lumpy skin.

“I know you don’t like it,” he murmured, his thumb rubbing delicate circles behind Remus’ ear, “but I think it’s badass.”

Remus rolled his eyes, shaking his head _._

“I’m dating a super hot, total badass,” Sirius announced proudly, dropping another kiss on his lips, tucking himself against Remus’ side. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

Sirius’ hand slipped onto Remus’ chest, feeling the quiet beat of his heart in the darkness. Sirius made one final sign for the night, slowly folding his middle and ring fingers into his palm. He tapped his remaining three fingers against Remus’ heart.

Smiling, Remus folded his hand the same way.

_I love you, too._


End file.
